Menominee quarterback Tanner Theuerkauf, right, follows blocker Clayton Miller, center, around the edge on a rushing play during the MHSAA 11-player football state championship game in Division 7 on Sunday at Ford Field in Detroit. (Photo courtesy MHSAA.com)

DETROIT — Menominee’s football program has been known a long time for its single-wing offensive scheme, which certainly has served the Maroons well over the years.

The secret to their success goes way deeper than that, however, and it has nothing to do with X’s and O’s.

Call it grit, tenacity or resolve — the Maroons have built their program around all those characteristics — and now they’re back on top.

Menominee defeated Schoolcraft, 34-6, in the MHSAA Division 7 Final in 11-player football on Sunday at Ford Field, where the word “grit” has been stamped into the fabric of the home field’s NFL Lions by head coach Dan Campbell.

With a comprehensive effort, Menominee (14-0) captured its first state title since 2007, the fourth in program history, and the first for an Upper Peninsula 11-player team since Ishpeming claimed the Division 7 championship in 2015.

“Just grit and just hard work. I mean, you saw it out there, we’ve got 30 guys on our sideline,” said Menominee senior Tanner Theuerkauf, the team’s starting quarterback and safety. “Growing up in Menominee, you’re going to have 30 guys on your team, if that. 

“You look at our offensive line, we have our guard, he’s 150 pounds — you don’t ever see that, and he just does his job and all those guys do their job in the trenches.

“Our want to win is just something you don’t see.”

Theuerkauf and some of his teammates were part of Menominee’s Division 7 runner-up squad two years ago, when the Maroons battled powerhouse Jackson Lumen Christi but fell just short, 34-30.

In last week’s semifinals, Menominee showed great resolve in erasing a two-touchdown deficit in the fourth quarter and securing a 32-28 victory over Pewamo-Westphalia in a matchup of teams ranked Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, in the final Associated Press regular-season Division 7 poll.

“Different mentality this year with these seniors,” said fourth-year Menominee coach Chad Brandt, who coincidentally did his student-teaching at Schoolcraft starting in 1996. “Times that I’m not around and they’re running to the locker room and grabbing the footballs and I drive by and they’re out there. That means a lot.

“And we have linemen that text me, ‘Can we have extra weight-room sessions?’ and those kind of things.

“It takes a lot of work, and these guys have put it in and I just couldn’t be prouder of this group of guys and for our town and for our school of Menominee because they deserve and they appreciate it and they support us in every way possible.”

Menominee senior Clayton Miller helped set the tone Sunday with his hard-nosed running. The 5-foot-11, 190-pounder scored the first three TDs Sunday for the Maroons, who took a 7-0 lead on his 5-yard run less than four minutes into the contest, went up 13-0 on his 2-yard run midway through the second, and led 20-0 on his 31-yard sprint four minutes into the third quarter.

Miller finished with a game-high 112 yards rushing on 25 carries.

“He’s the greatest running back that I’ve ever played with. He’s one of the greatest in Menominee history,” Theuerkauf said about Miller. “He’s not the biggest guy in the world, but he just runs so hard — he runs through guys.

“Just for him to want to win, he shows so much energy out there. He’s not the most talkative guy, but he gets the job done and I love that.”

Several Menominee players got the job done, but senior Maverick Geniesse was another who stood out. With Menominee leading 7-0 late in the first quarter and Schoolcraft threatening to score, Geniesse intercepted a pass at the 1 on a Schoolcraft 1st-and-10 from the 12 to snuff out the Eagles’ opportunity.

Menominee turned around and embarked on an 18-play, 79-yard drive that chewed up 8:17 of the clock and was capped by Miller’s second TD run as the Maroons took command with a 13-0 lead.

Geniesse also got into the scoring act, catching a 2-yard TD toss from Theuerkauf early in the fourth quarter for a 28-0 Maroons lead. Junior Jackson Myszak capped the Menominee scoring with an 8-yard TD run with 2 1/2 minutes left.

“It feels great. I mean, I’ve dreamed about stuff like this. The ultimate goal is to just be the best team player I can and help the team in any way I can,” Geniesse said. “Of course, the interception, that got our morale going the other way; and the touchdown (reception), it felt pretty good.”

Schoolcraft (11-3) got on the board midway through the fourth quarter on senior TJ Luteyn’s 4-yard scoring run.

Both teams displayed offensive balance — Menominee was just more effective throughout the game. Menominee tallied 358 total yards, 198 of it rushing and 160 passing, while Schoolcraft totaled 248 on 100 rushing and 148 passing.

“Good, physical team,” Schoolcraft first-year coach Dan DeVries said about Menominee. “Their scheme is a challenging scheme. They can hit the edge hard and you’ve also got to watch for something up the middle and their quarterback can throw as well, so a lot of dimensions to their game.

“I think they played a fantastic game today. They didn’t make mistakes and we did, and that certainly showed in the score.”

Theuerkauf completed passes to six receivers and finished 7 of 11 for 160 yards. Schoolcraft junior QB Jack DeVries was 12 for 26 for 148 yards.

Schoolcraft seniors Evan Feller and Dane Ostlund paced all defenders with 12 and 11 tackles, respectively. Junior Nathan Nelson notched nine tackles to lead Menominee.

Sunday signified Menominee’s seventh finals appearance. The Maroons also seized championships in 1998, 2006 and 2007 under legendary coach Ken Hofer.

This Menominee teamed restored some of that “U.P. Power” that Maroons and others north of the Mackinac Bridge take such great pride in.

“That does mean something when we head back across that bridge and it’s ‘U.P. Power’ and we’ll go through other towns and they’ll be honking horns or happy out on the street,” said Brandt, a Gladstone native, who spent 20 years as head coach at another U.P. school in Stephenson.

“The U.P. is someplace special, and it means something.”

For Theuerkauf, this one was a bit personal, too. His older brother, Trevor Theuerkauf, was the starting QB and a two-way standout on the Menominee team that made it to the finals in 2023.

“He just told me, ‘Go out there and play (your) game. (You) don’t have to worry about anything else,'” Tanner Theuerkauf said. “I kind of had the edge on some of these guys because I’ve been here before. I played in this game — didn’t go our way, but today, come out and get the job done, it’s just the greatest feeling of my life.”

This story also appears on the MHSAA website, www.mhsaa.com. Scott DeCamp has been a sports reporter with MLive at the Muskegon Chronicle, and is currently a downstate Whitehall resident. He is lead writer for CatchMark SportsNet and founder and owner of DeCamp Creative Solutions.